


Content within a narrow range

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Conspiracy, F/M, Friendship, Romance, Secrets, pharmaceutical industry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 02:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11371014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: The plot thickens. The clouds part. The plan's afoot.





	Content within a narrow range

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sagiow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagiow/gifts).
  * Inspired by [PE4CHE5](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11268072) by [sagiow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagiow/pseuds/sagiow). 



Anne had insisted they meet in the sub-basement, a warren of dank rooms that were used for storage, that Jed could not recall ever having stepped foot in. He’d been aware it existed from the letters that lit up on the elevator panel, but that was the sum total of his knowledge and he couldn’t say he’d been missing much. The room was chilly, dusty, crammed with office storage furniture of the most generic kind, the fluorescent light making everyone present look queasy, except for Sam, who looked atypically malevolent.

“Bridget says he’s never been down here,” Anne said and then it all made sense, why they were where they were and what the topic would be. Perhaps he should have been able to make the leap without any assistance, but considering the strain of trying to identify the reason the last lot had been flawed, the increased burden they all felt with Mary’s absence as day after day it became more obvious just how much essential work she had done, skillfully and subtly, so that none of them, even those who considered her a friend, had truly known how much her departure would mean. And then there was a more pleasant tension, for Jed alone, of a burgeoning relationship with a woman he had been drawn to for over a year but whom he now discovered had attractions previously unanticipated. Mary had a biting wit, a particular, powerful talent at solving puzzles, a sense of rhythm from her Dominican grandmother than made her salsa devastating, and the silkiest skin. Their relationship would never had flourished so dramatically if she had remained employed at the corporation and so he could almost not regret her unjust termination except for the lost look in her eyes when he could tell she was trying not to ask about the trial, the overly bright smile when she spoke of her interviews with consulting firms, the calls from Milwaukee and Spokane. She needed her job back, she deserved a damn promotion, and they’d sit down with Charlotte to talk about how to manage but first, McBurney had to be dealt with. Fortunately, from the tigerish grin on Anne’s face and the fatuous, beaming expression on Byron’s, others had taken the lead on that.

“So, we’re safe, is what Annie means. We can speak freely,” Byron explained unnecessarily. Jed bit back the retort that was his default mode around Hale, understanding they had a common enemy and a common goal. 

“It was McBurney,” Anne announced. She spoke the words as if they tasted delicious, foie gras or 72% cacao truffles. She had found out a secret and there was nothing she liked better than that. Not even Marmite, though she’d had a similar tone when extolling the virtues of the revolting yeast-jam. Jed had stupidly tried it once when she offered and had wished he still drank hard liquor, to wash the taste out and drink enough to forget it. 

“What was?” Sam asked, beating Jed to the punch.

“McBurney’s the one responsible for the last lot being bad. He countermanded the order to the regular supplier and sourced it from group called Greenworks. I found a veritable trove of emails between him and a Jim Green. They’re shameless, really, they didn’t even bother to conceal the kickbacks. He’s not nearly so adept technologically as he’d like to believe, as you’d think from that device glued to his hand,” Anne said. 

“No one else is implicated?” Henry asked. “No one in senior management or any of his assistants? Not Bridget?” 

“No one. Bridget was the one who tipped me off in the first place. There’s no love lost there, I can assure you. She’s got a mouth on her, Jesus!” Anne replied. Jed had little trouble imaging Bridget Brannan, McBurney’s executive assistant “secretary’s good enough for me, but oh no, mustn’t call me that even though he’ll ask for 2% organic milk for his coffee from the twee natural foods’ store across town and that’s all he’ll take!” turning on the man. She’d never suffered fools gladly and had always seemed to appreciate Mary’s virtues, even when the rest of them, save Sam, had not.

“So, what’re we going to do?” Emma said quickly. Jed would have been put out that he hadn’t been the one to ask, except that it meant Mary had several people who were equally horrified and enraged at her unfair firing.

“We’re going to take the bastard down. And we’re going to do it so perfectly, so exquisitely legally that he’ll never see it coming and Mary will have the board of directors falling all over themselves to offer her his job,” Anne said.

“And you’re okay with that, Mary having his job, not just her old one back?” Jed interjected. It would make it harder for them as a couple but not impossible, but to hear Anne, Mary’s erstwhile rival, espousing such a plan made him wonder if the scorpion hid the sting in her tail.

“Well, I’ll have hers. And her gratitude. And favors I can call in with the whole board, including old Summers. So, yes, I’m entirely okay with that,” Anne replied, almost pretty with her conniving. She knew he would warn Mary and she wasn’t worried about that. He would once have been concerned that Mary was about to be overmatched, but he’d seen a new side of her lately. He knew how she could dance and how she could solve equations that baffled him and how every maître’ d would fall over himself to get them the best table. He’d seen those dark eyes soft and warm and he’d seen them absolutely without mercy. He wasn’t worried about Mary.

“When do we start?” Sam said, nodding at Jed, not bothering to smile. Jed did, because he was not driven by justice, but by vengeance and retribution and the sweetest, deepest love. He thought of Mary, how she tasted of peaches when he kissed her, and how she held out her hand when he asked her to dance. He smiled and nodded at Anne and it was begun.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't resist adding this as a sequel of sorts to sagiow's latest work "PE4CHE5." It's romantic and Oceans 11s-y and there's Marmite and salsa dancing. The title is taken from sagiow's author's note on the definition of uniformity of doses. I think it stands alone but read sagiow's first!


End file.
